Philosophy Tuesday

I have quite the flair for the dramatic, in the “always gotta be a bit of show biz” kind of way.

As I told a friend once as we got into a car for a road trip, “If I yell out “ohgodohgodwe’reallgoingtodie” we’re not actually going to die, I’m just being silly and dramatic.”

Clearly, I can ham it up quite well.

In many ways this is great and fun and funny. It’s playful. It works.

However…

I wonder if it has a downside as well.

When I want to be serious, express my concerns or views, or when attempting to share honest communication about my feelings, thoughts, who I am… all those things that are essential to communication and our relatedness in the world… Does it make it easy to dismiss what I’m saying, or, moreover, me?

For I doubt very much that, in those moments, the flair goes away, certainly not entirely.

I wonder how it lands for others?

Ordinarily, I would consider that this kind of dramaticness would be quite likely inauthentic, covering up for something. But I think here, for me, there is a good deal of authenticity in it. It has become a self expression for me: gregarious, big, zany, full of passion and gusto.

And yet…

There’s something I’m missing here, something on how to be and how to communicate in those moments. Something about what is my authentic expression. Something about how to share in a way that creates connection and understanding.

It is something I am in an inquiry about.

(and I do wonder if this post in of itself will sound dramatic and thus overblown and empty…)